Shu Yun Hotel Chengdu

... 15 minutes,
et que la conversation devrait se limiter aux muscles, aux moteurs, pis
sur la lubrification de la belt dans une souffleuse. Des fois la peche
aussi si le poisson n'a pas trop une forme phallique.



Mais en Chine, on se rappelle, c'est le monde a l'envers. Les chapeaux
sur les pieds et les souliers sur la tete, on dit bye pour se dire
bonjour et etc etc etc.



Donc ca commence par une lavage de cheveu ...

... the impressive Celestial Peak, but we left base camp to continue our trek before they got back.


The upper mere fraction of the massive Celestial Peak poked up through the clouds


Horses running free in the Changping valley

We enjoyed the spectacular views all along the way. The valley terrain lends itself to good ...

... se zde cela rada cajoven, ktere jsou vyhlasene a lide v nich zde travi dost casu a masti karty. Chengdu ma pro tuto slabustku v ostatni Cine prezdivku Line mesto.
Druhy den jsme si trochu prispali, dopoledne jsme si jeste objednali 2 denni organizovany vylet do Leshanu a na Emei Shan. Na recepci se jim moc nezdalo, ze chceme jet s cinskym organizovanym zajezdem, kde pruvodce neumi anglicky, ale my byli neustupni. Pak jsme navstivili chram v ...

... cute!) So Joshua and Heather's band 'Proximity Butterfly" were the second supporting act, the first was an acoustic duo from Chengdu. Proximity Butterfly are great, really interesting music, with great beats and really tuneful. I really enjoyed them and they pumped the audience up perfectly for the Eastwood (as it says on the posters!) !
So then the boys went on and they we so good! The audience were all pretty much young people who loved ...

... Leshan to see the world's largest Buddha statue, carved into the side of the rock. Laura spent 2 weeks in school studying it and promptly forgot everything except that it is important. 2 weeks + 2 hour bus ride + 20 minute speed boat ride = 1 giant buddha photo. The speed boat driver offered to take around the harbour doing donuts in the river. We declined...3 times. Next stop, the ancient city of Lijiang to celebrate our 5th anniversary!

... old western men trying to sing Karaoke with the live band and younger ex-pats and tourists. Another highlight of Chengdu was visiting the Panda reserve just outside of the city. Unlike what we have heard about other Chinese zoo's the pandas had loads of space and seemed pretty happy lying around and munching bamboo ...

... we went to see a giant Buddha. We had to walk up about 400 steps to get to his head, only to walk down another 400 steps to get down to his feet. This day would have been an interesting study into the behaviour of the Chinese. At one point I thought they were just going to push us down the stairs and trample us, they seemed to be in such a rush! I'm getting pretty good at pushing back now! From the Buddha we drove onto Mt Emei, our home for the next few nights.

... the minpien, one should receive it standing up, with two hands, slightly lowering your head. This particular detail is easy to master. We have made over 130 personal contacts, visited 25 potential job sites, contacted 48 different NGOs, businesses and other groups, and 19 government departments, and we've held 42 meetings. We still haven't been able to get to work, and that is due to other complexities a bit more difficult to navigate than giving and ...

... on much less than this amount, toiling seven days a week for up to 20 hours per days, which provides them with just barely enough to eat. Food in Vietnam is cheap by Western standards - rarely over a dollar for a meal. However, the average wage-earner in Vietnam cannot afford three decent squares a day on their meager salary. Yes, life is tough and only the strong, industrious, resourceful, cunning, and forgiving survive. These are the characteristics that ...

... and packaging of Christmas still hasn't caught on here, for which I am grateful. Besides the occasional Santa in a shop window, the (blessedly few) places that decided to torture my ears with Christmas songs played at volumes similar to a jumbo taking off and the line of eight people to say 'Merry Christmas' at Carrefour - who says there's a labour surplus in China? - there was little to show that anyone even knew what ...